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Edited Date/Time
1/24/2012 7:44am
Seeing the Adidas seat on Christian Craig's bike got me thinking. Why don't we see major corporations like Coke & Pepsi or McDonalds & Mars sponsoring teams or riders?
Surely if companies like Skull Candy or Muscle Milk can see some benefit then the above companies would to? The average young moto fan would have to be close to their main market?
Surely if companies like Skull Candy or Muscle Milk can see some benefit then the above companies would to? The average young moto fan would have to be close to their main market?
Moto folks are cheap bastards.
Hopefully they didn't see the blurred out logo on TP's hat if they are on the fence!
I think the bigger corporations are less involved today than 10 years ago.
As far as return on investment goes, surely Coke or McDonalds would see more benefit than say Nike or Target currently do? I'm not suggesting that these companies pay for naming rights but maybe they could sponsor in a smaller way, like Adidas with Troy Lee or rider sponsorship, think Target - Dungey. How much TV time and how many magazine covers would Coke get for example if they had their logo on James' bike or the golden arches on Canard's?
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It was during the time I raced and was in the pits weekly.
Plano had Shark (ended up being nothing) and I remembered seeing the logo and thinking it was huge.
I think it has got a lot better in recent years with outside sponsors jumping in. It seems there are a lot more. I know we had Camel, and Toyota (and others) in the past but it always seemed like we had one or two at a time and they were series sponsors, not team or rider sponsors. Now in the pits there are a lot of outside sponsors helping teams and riders.
I am a believer that X games influenced and helped our sport a lot and guys like Travis Pastrana and Deegan paved the way for corporate America to our sport and riders. Some people will argue all you want but I find it more than coincidence that the same time X games started with moto is when all the corporate sponsorships happened with teams and individuals on a greater scale in our world.
I think he rode for them a couple of years. First on the Yami for a year or two before the KTM deal.
AND, Like him or hate him, Hollywood Scott Sepkovic can lay claim to landing many a "outside" the industry sponsor before anyone else was doing it 10 years ago.
Remember, he did all the opening ceremonies that year and a farewell type of tour.
I guess my real question is why don't we see these big corporations sponsoring on a smaller scale. The average or passing fan doesn't even know the full name of some of the race teams but they certainly recognise the logos on the bikes. For example, average Joe wouldn't know the Suzuki team as Rockstar/Makita Suzuki but they will definitely recognise the Makita name and logo on the bike.
Imagine if you will, Trey doing a fender slap over the finish with the golden arches on his front guard!? I dunno but I think there is money out there for an astute manager.
I agree with you about X games though, freestyle is perceived as more marketable, which is possibly true but the SX/MX seasons are pretty long and the exposure is there.
I hate to compare our sport to Nascar....
BUT, that is one big commercialized and corporate sponsorships filled series and it looks, from the outside, that it is enabling drivers to make MILLIONS and make a lot more of than our riders and I still believe the weekend warrior racer is still hitting the local tracks on the weekends.
I don't see how outside sponsorships is the beginning of the end. Can you explain?
The fact that a sport can support outside sponsors means that people that participate in the sport are no longer needed to fund it.
Racing at that level becomes nothing more than advertising. It is no longer a sport funded by the sale of products manufactured for the use in that sport.
The factories do not make all that much money off of bike sales anyhow. When they can make that same dollar amount from advertising and lose the liability they will do so. The prestige ad money and brand awareness from racing like f1 is much more important to shareholders and board members, than how many kids, vets and C class riders buy their dirt bikes.
What everyone is calling GROWTH of this sport is nothing more than the growth of the market that viewing MX and SX creates.
The trend of the ACTUAL PARTICIPATION of racing MX has been and continues to decline.
We are likely headed to something similar to the kart/f3000/f1 racing program.
Kids who can afford it will race mini bikes, if they show spectacular promise they will get picked up by a school or training program, if they continue to succeed they will be offered a chance to race one off factory bikes that are not even sold any longer due to laws or economics.
And we will continue to watch them race on TV. We will buy the ugly t-shirts. We will drink the sugar water that has zero positive effect on an athelete. We will pay 8 bucks for a link to an online magazine with pictures of formerly rich kids who are now fabulously wealthy superstar SX racers.
I could go on forever.
Don't get me wrong I have no idea what so ever if any of that will take place, but the fact that companies who have nothing at all to do with dirt bike racing are willing to pay for people to see their name during a dirt bike race means that it is all possible.
I personally think it is likely if viewership continues to rise and the number of racers continues to fall.
To answer some of the above questions, the reason that more companies don't spend money sponsoring SX/MX teams is the decision maker does not want to lose their job. If they spend money on TV spots and social media, and their sales go down, the market is bad. If they spend sponsoring a SX/MX and sales are down, it is their fault and they are fired. It is safer to stick to traditional media buys.
SX/MX works for energy drinks because conventional media doesn't work very well for reaching Men 18-34. The Rockstar TV commercial with RD is terrible and would not motivate anyone to buy Rockstar. But the branding they do with RD and the Nationals leveraged with graphic and gear sales motivates a ton of people to buy their drinks. Huge win for them.
We buy the products that the sponsor manufacture.
With outside sponsors, they do not manufacture products for the industry. If the money from outside sponsors prices industry companies out of the market they will no longer need riders to fund SX.
Kind of like wrestling. There is not really anysuch thing as amateur wwe wrestling, and it is not needed to support the "show" that is professional wwe wrestling.
Like monster trucks.
Like F1.
The big four are in racing for brand awareness. Same reason they are in f1. When they no longer have to sell bikes to amateur racers to get that brand awareness they will stop doing so. And ad money from outside the industry sponsors is a huge step in that direction.
Again, I am not even remotely claiming this will happen. Just that it is possible and that this business model is supported by other "sports".
Pit Row
Keep in mind that Adidas is not so far from the moto industry, they already have snowboard and MTB goggles and already sponsor riders with their products in those other action sports.
I wouldn't be surprise if we see riders using new Adidas MX goggles in the coming years.
Maybe McDonalds and similar size companies don't want to align themselves with the bad boy image that motocross has.
For Monster and other drink companies, this is their target audience.
The Demographics are there...now we need the ability to present, effectively, to the Co's you're talking about.
Jus' my opinion...
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